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Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their garments.

Several cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Response and Regulatory Stance

XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit image stripping tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality

The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.

It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.

History of Controversy and Rules

The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.

"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.

It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.